Field of the invention
The present invention generally relates to an ingredient dosing apparatus and more specifically to a conveyor system for individually supplying the various ingredients to a mixer for processing animal feed, particularly for livestock, poultry or the like.
Description of the prior art
In existing systems, each ingredient is supplied to the mixer by its individual conveyor which is usually a screw conveyor having its own hopper. As all ingredients do not go into the feed in the same proportions, it is obvious that the screw conveyors must be driven at appropriate speeds that differentiate from one another to ensure a constant supply of the right amounts of ingredients into the mixer so as to arrive at a properly balanced feed. For this purpose, each screw conveyor has its own D.C. motor provided with an adequate speed control unit in the form of an AC-DC convertor, for instance.
The above system is quite complex and costly as well as somewhat unsafe if the strength of the network current is not too reliable.
A main object of the invention lies in providing a system of the above type which is quite simpler, mainly in that it avoids having to resort to a D.C. motor and speed control unit for each conveyor. In fact, only one motor is required, according to the invention, with the further advantage that this motor may be a more conventional A.C. motor with speed control of the rotary screw conveyors being achieved wholly mechanically.